Cora saved the game with his arm by throwing out what could have been the winning run at the plate on a hustling play in the fourth inning. Then he won it in the 14th inning by drawing a walk and coming around to score on a sacrifice fly by Frank Thomas as the White Sox defeated the Orioles 2-1.

Donn Pall, the fourth Sox pitcher, threw two innings of shutout ball-striking out the side in the 14th, to even his record at 1-1.

Right-hander Alan Mills was the loser. He is 0-1.

The win snapped a losing streak at three games for the Sox, who came into the season hailed as one of the most powerful offensive teams in the major leagues but have had all kinds of trouble scoring runs.

They were shut out in back-to-back games in Boston Sunday and Monday and have scored just three runs in their last 41 innings going back to last Saturday.

The Sox only got nine hits in 14 innings, but Lance Johnson, riding an 11-game hitting streak, got two, including the biggest of the night in the final inning.

Johnson's hit was the only one in the winning rally as the Sox scrambled to manufacture a run.

Cora, riding an 0-for-13 slump, opened the 14th with a walk and went to second on a passed ball. Johnson sent him to third with a ball that dribbled out of the infield and into shallow left.

Thomas followed with a sacrifice fly to center to score Cora. That tied him with Johnson for the team lead in runs batted in at a mere six.

"That might be just want Frank needs," said manager Gene Lamont, who has seen his star hitter get off to a .245 start. "Sometimes a sacrifice fly can make you feel good about yourself-make a bad night seem good."

What made a potentially bad night end well was the dazzling throw Cora made in the fourth.

With the score tied at 1, Baltimore loaded the bases with two outs. Lamont noticed that Orioles third baseman Leo Gomez was straying off the bag at second base and called for a pitchout.

Catcher Ron Karkovice tried it on the next pitch, making a snap throw to second with shortstop Ozzie Guillen covering the bag. The ball got to Guillen at the same time as Gomez was hustling back, and he knocked it out of Guillen's glove.

When the ball trickled a few feet behind the bag, Chris Hoiles broke from third base to try to score. Cora, backing up the throw, hustled in, grabbed the ball and threw sidearm to Karkovice in time to gun down Hoiles.

"Wasn't that an unbelieveable throw?" Lamont said of Cora's off-balance effort. "When he did it, I was thinking, `What are you doing even trying to make that throw? ' "

What he was doing was saving the game. If Hoiles had scored, Baltimore would have won 2-1 in nine.

Both teams had scored a run in the third. The Sox got theirs on an infield single by Steve Sax and a standup triple by Guillen. The Orioles tied it up when Harold Reynolds singled, stole second and scored on a double by Brady Anderson.

Cora made a great throw in that inning, too, to cut down another possible run. It came when Anderson tried to stretch his double into a triple. Right-fielder Ellis Burks dug the ball out of the right-field corner and threw a strike to Cora, who came out to shallow right to get it and wheeled and launched a rope of a throw to Robin Ventura to nail Anderson by a step.

"I tell you, Joey makes things happen," said Lamont.

The game started with a magnificent pitching duel between Sox left-hander Wilson Alvarez and Baltimore rightie Ben McDonald. Neither figured in the decision.

Alvarez, who threw a no-hitter against the Orioles in his 1991 Sox debut, gave up just six hits in eight innings. He walked five, but he struck out six.

Alvarez was making just his second start of the year. He had to leave his first game on April 9 against the Yankees with numbness in his left hand after giving up four runs in just three innings, and he got rained out of another scheduled start.

"I've been working on my mechanics hard the past few days," he said. "I felt good. I'm not tired. I walked five guys, but they were close pitches. I wasn't really wild."